Boston, MA: A Class Action lawsuit has been filed against the Social Security Administration (SSA) on behalf of its clients after SSA's repeated failures to disclose queried information as required by the Freedom of Information Act and the 1974 Privacy Act.
The SSA, a United States agency which administers a variety of Social Security insurance programs to seniors and disabled Americans, compiles an array of records pertaining to individuals' earnings, claims and benefits and is, in fact, the country's largest central repository of personal information.
Among the chief complaints outlined in the Class Action suit, SSA has allegedly released some query requests while arbitrarily denying others; instituted onerous procedural requirements; caused undue and unnecessary delays in processing routine requests; has solicited wide-ranging and sometimes unconscionable fees through its thousands of local field offices which must be unfairly passed on to Claimants and Beneficiaries in the absence of court intervention. In so doing, the suit alleges that the agency has repeatedly violated US statutes, including the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Administrative Procedures Act.
